Spring framework unable to start embedded container

Question

I'm following Spring in Action 4th Edition Chapter 5, but I'm stuck at the very first example.

Here is my Eclipse Luna project structure:

If I run this project as Spring Boot App, then it throws exceptions:

org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start embedded container; nested exception is org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start EmbeddedWebApplicationContext due to missing EmbeddedServletContainerFactory bean.
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.onRefresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:133)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:474)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.refresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:118)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:686)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:320)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:957)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:946)
    at spittr.SpittrApplication.main(SpittrApplication.java:10)
Caused by: org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start EmbeddedWebApplicationContext due to missing EmbeddedServletContainerFactory bean.
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.getEmbeddedServletContainerFactory(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:183)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.createEmbeddedServletContainer(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:156)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.onRefresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:130)
    ... 7 common frames omitted

How can I fix this problem?

Contents of all files:

SpittrApplication.java:

package spittr;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpittrApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpittrApplication.class, args);
    }
}

SpittrWebAppInitializer.java:

package spittr.config;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.support.AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer;

public class SpittrWebAppInitializer extends
        AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {
    @Override
    protected String[] getServletMappings() {
        return new String[] { "/" };
    }

    @Override
    protected Class<?>[] getRootConfigClasses() {
        return new Class<?>[] { RootConfig.class };
    }

    @Override
    protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {
        return new Class<?>[] { WebConfig.class };
    }
}

WebConfig.java:

package spittr.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ViewResolver;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.EnableWebMvc;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.WebMvcConfigurerAdapter;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver;

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
@ComponentScan("spittr.web")
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
    @Bean
    public ViewResolver viewResolver() {
        InternalResourceViewResolver resolver = new InternalResourceViewResolver();
        resolver.setPrefix("/WEB-INF/views/");
        resolver.setSuffix(".jsp");
        resolver.setExposeContextBeansAsAttributes(true);
        return resolver;
    }

    @Override
    public void configureDefaultServletHandling(
            DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer configurer) {
        configurer.enable();
    }
}

RootConfig.java:

package spittr.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan.Filter;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.FilterType;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.EnableWebMvc;

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = { "spitter" }, excludeFilters = { @Filter(type = FilterType.ANNOTATION, value = EnableWebMvc.class) })
public class RootConfig {
}

HomeController.java:

package spittr.web;

import static org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod.*;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;

@Controller
public class HomeController {
    @RequestMapping(value = "/", method = GET)
    public String home() {
        return "home";
    }
}

home.jsp:

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<%@ page session="false" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Spittr</title>
<link rel="stylesheet"
type="text/css"
href="<c:url value="/resources/style.css" />" >
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to Spittr</h1>
<a href="<c:url value="/spittles" />">Spittles</a> |
<a href="<c:url value="/spitter/register" />">Register</a>
</body>
</html>

pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.spittr</groupId>
    <artifactId>spittr</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>

    <name>spittr</name>
    <description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.4.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath /> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

Solution

When using Spring Boot you should not include the other Spring dependencies directly, but rely on Boot's own dependency management. When using the provided "starters" you can be sure that all needed libraries will be included in a matching version.

Instead of including spring-mvc artifact in your pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
</dependency>

use the dedicated Boot starter for webapps, spring-boot-starter-web:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>

More details in the the official guide

---

I believe other parts of your pom.xml are superfluous as well (spring-boot-starter, javax.servlet-api, spring-boot-maven-plugin)